Now in 2014, after the library budget has already been cut, with the help of the ICO I've had some sort of response that
resolves this issue.

The revised response

The email I received included the following information, with my bolding:

"I have considered your request and the information previously provided to you and would advise that the information
that was provided to you in response to your request for an internal review does constitute the information held by
Lincolnshire County Council that falls within the description specified in your request."

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologise that this was not clear and have provided the information for you again
below, with explanatory text which I hope puts the information into context for you."

"A proportion of the total expenditure by each individual support service is attributed to the individual departments using
those services and the amounts shown below detail the expenditure that has been attributed specifically to supporting
Libraries. Unfortunately, the Council does not hold the information in the form of a detailed breakdown as you have
requested. Although we are unable to provide a detailed breakdown, we have provided a brief description of the
services provided."

"Please note that the table below is for the last financial year 2012/13"

IT – service delivery, programme delivery and IT strategy, network support, telephony, desktop and helpdesk
support

£2,792,319.13

This information came from the council's legal department. Although there's a little extra information explaining
what each of the types of spending entail, I don't think it's very illuminating. In fact, I think the lack of detail is
damning. LCC's executive didn't have a clear idea of how the support budget was being spent last year. This, more
than anything, makes their decision to cut the funding for 30 libraries and turn them into volunteer-run "Community
Hubs" look terribly ill-advised.

Yes, central government have decided that local councils can get by with vastly reduced budgets, to the extent
that hundreds of libraries are being lost around the country. However, LCC demonstrably haven't turned over
every stone in order to ensure frontline library cuts were left as a last resort.

It's time for the county council executive to commit to recording more data about how they are spending our money. It's
one of the least things they should be doing, because if they don't get the basics of good governance sorted out
they can't hope to run an efficient service that's fit for purpose.